


Beginning of the End

by icandrawamoth



Series: February Ficlet Challenge 2019 [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Lost Stars - Claudia Gray
Genre: Alderaan, Break Up, Established Relationship, February Ficlet Challenge, Fusion of Star Wars Legends and Disney Canon, M/M, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 02:00:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17757653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icandrawamoth/pseuds/icandrawamoth
Summary: The destruction of Alderaan opens a chasm between Tycho and Nash.





	Beginning of the End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ikarus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikarus/gifts).



> For February Ficlet Challenge day six prompt "nonverbal communication." Pairing requested by ikarus.

Tycho and Nash have had to keep their relationship under wraps since it started. Though the Empire doesn't care about its soldiers' sexualities, it does frown heavily on fraternization. They've both understood that from the beginning, though. Stolen kisses and meaningful glances across crowded rooms have always been enough.

Now...now Tycho is staring out the softly humming magcon field of a hanger onboard the DS-1 battle station, watching a billion pieces of floating glitter swim through space. Floating glitter that used to be a planet – Alderaan, his home. His and Nash's.

When Tycho finally manages to figure out how to breathe again, he turns away from the sight, a sob frozen in his throat. He can't let it out. It would be suspicious. They would question his loyalty. The pain that thought brings is piercing. He's questioning his own, so much more than he ever has.

Most of all, he wants to find Nash. He wants to go running to his boyfriend, up on a bridge somewhere in another part of the Death Star whose name he now understands in the most horrible of ways. Tycho wants to throw himself into Nash's arms, wrap his arms around him in turn because he knows he's hurting just as much, and just grieve together.

But he has to keep himself in one piece. There's no other choice. So Tycho keeps his jaw locked, eyes straight ahead as he walks numbly down the halls, posture as rigid and straight as his Imperial Academy masters ever taught him. His duty shift is over. He can return to the barracks on the _Devastator_ and be...perhaps not alone, but moreso. Soon, Nash will be with him.

Tycho has just sat down on his bunk, the numbness spreading through his body as the faces of his family, dead and gone, flash through his mind, tears threatening again, when Nash enters. He sits down across from Tycho on his own bunk, hands clenched at his sides. Tycho imagines the empty look on his boyfriend's face mirrors his own.

“You saw,” Tycho says, his voice ragged, and Nash nods once, a quick bob of his head. His eyes are haunted. “How could they?”

“To make an example.” Nash's words are rigid, shockingly steady. “The Empire can't abide by traitors.”

“Not all of them were Rebels,” Tycho protests weakly, and Nash shakes his head sharply, long braid whipping back and forth.

“If this was the only thing the galaxy will listen to, it had to be done.”

Tycho's stomach sours. There's no way Nash can believe the words he's saying. It's the shock, it's denial, it's him trying to rationalize it to himself. It has to be.

Tycho moves to sit beside him, reaching for his boyfriend's hand. Nash jerks away, and not because they might be seen. The room is empty but for the two of them.

“Nash-”

“Stop it, Tycho. Just, stop it. It happened. They're gone.” He's babbling now. “It's done; it had to be done, and we have to live with it. We're still loyal to the Empire.”

Tycho is afraid to reach for him again. Nash sounds like he really believes what he's saying, and Tycho can't understand it. Nash has never seemed to agree with Tycho's emerging doubts in the past, though he'd cared about him enough to to report his possible treason, but now...how can he not question now, when he's just seem the murder of billions before his very eyes?

“Please, Nash,” Tycho says quietly and reaches for him again.

Again, Nash pulls away. “I'm going for a walk,” he says woodenly and a second later is gone.

Tycho feels cold. More alone than he ever has. His family is gone. His old friends are all gone. His entire world is gone.

And even Nash has pulled away. Tycho tries to tell himself it's how he's dealing with the grief, that the initial shock of it hasn't settled for either of them yet, but he knows it's a lie. There's a chasm there, sudden and uncrossable, and it's going to tear them apart as surely as anything.

Cold, alone, Tycho lies down on his bed with dry eyes and begins to plan. He has to leave the Empire, he has to find the Rebels and avenge what's been taken from him, but he has to be smart about it. He falls asleep thinking of his upcoming leave on Commenor and dreams of fire and death.

Three days later, Tycho and Nash have barely spoken, about Alderaan or anything else. Nash avoids Tycho eyes when he tries to catch them across the room and doesn't try to initiate anything, even when they're definitely alone.

On the third day, Nash turns up in the mess with his hair cut short – the long brown braids gone, and Tycho feels his throat welling up. He understands the symbol. A stripping away of that part of his identity, a new start.

A new start without Alderaan, and without Tycho.


End file.
